ESTABLISHING STIMULUS CONTROL AND OBSERVING BEHAVIOR BY DIFFERENCES IN RESPONSE COST

Abstract

To consider observing behavior as the behavior that produces discriminative stimuli for another behavior, an experiment was conducted in which the main manipulated variable was the relative cost between observing response and the other behavior’s response. Frequencies and durations were registered for both responses. Six adult humans were divided into two groups. The first group’s participants were exposed to a multiple schedule. Pressing a button during reinforcement components produced points later exchanged for money. After reaching a discrimination index of at least 0.9 for three consecutive sessions, participants were supposed to be exposed to a mixed schedule with an observing response available through another button. The second group’s participants were directly exposed to this second condition. The second group’s participants achieved higher discrimination index than the first group’s mainly after reversing the cost of the responses. The relevance of inter-response cost analysis was discussed to establish relations between observing behavior and stimulus control.Key words: observing behavior, observing response, cost of response, attention, stimulus control, humans.